Thesilencejustexplodedandthewordscameallatonce
by Can'tThinkOfaUsername
Summary: Effy's account of the night of Tony's accident.


**(Effy's POV of the night of Tony's accident in Series 1- the ending is before he started to get better, by the way)**

* * *

The silence had been quite special. Quite beautiful, really.

Words were different. They floated past, and sometimes I listened. Most of the time, I just heard. I liked the silence. People; the talkers; sometimes, they thought I was stupid. Their voices would go all quiet and they'd whisper to each other "Ssh, that's that little Stonem girl. Yeah, Anthea's kid. I heard she can't talk anymore. Poor thing". Then they'd awkwardly look away, exchanging pitiful glances. If only they could have seen how utterly pathetic they were. They had no idea that I noticed everything. And I do mean everything. I knew about their affairs. I knew about their err.. _interesting _hobbies. I knew exactly how they'd spent the night before. It felt sort of like magic, in a way, but it was observance. Only observance. Sometimes, I felt tempted to just jump out at them and shout 'BOO!', just to see what they thought of the little 'mute' girl then. I'd probably have shocked them right out of their thermal underwear though, and that really wasn't a sight I'd have liked to have seen.

After a few months, the words changed. Words belonged to the talkers. Words weren't a part of me. They clouded over so much- they covered the world in a screechy drone and blocked out nearly everything. After that few months, though, I was detached from the words. I saw everything. I knew everything. I didn't need them. I didn't want the words. I didn't want to be one of them. The talkers. I was Effy. Unique, special, and sort of beautiful, I hoped. I suppose, in a way, it started to scare me a little, and I do mean a_ little_. I don't do scared. Mildly alarmed, if you like. I knew too much. I saw too much. And everything I knew, everything I heard, everything I saw- it was all absolutely, undoubtedly _screwed up,_ beyond belief.

So I started to speak again. I'd never really intended to keep the silence forever. It would have been nice, but it was only an experiment, an idea stemmed from sheer curiousity. I didn't like talking. I still don't. I don't believe in perfection, though, I don't try to make things right. I don't try. I'm just Effy. At the start, I wasn't much good at talking again. It wasn't that I'd forgotten. It wasn't that I didn't know what to say. It was just that words were different- they weren't subconscious anymore. They didn't really come to me easily, with the exception of occasional outbursts of blatent honesty (generally in a rather impolite fashion). Everything changed, though- the night of the accident.

I heard it. I heard the thud. I heard the hesitance of brakes. I heard it, and I just knew. I knew it was him. I knew it was Tony. I didn't have to see. I just knew. I heard the scream. The ear-splitting scream that echoed in my head for days. Even now, I can still hear it. It's still there and it won't go away. It didn't even occur to me until several moments later that that scream was mine. Tony. My Tony. My brother. The only one I really cared about- the only one who didn't think of me as a total mentalcase.

In that split second, I wasn't Effy anymore. I wasn't unique, mysterious, anything. I wasn't anything.

I suppose I must have ran. I don't really remember. I just remember feeling too heavy for my body. My legs wouldn't move fast enough. They were all shaky and crap. I couldn't get there fast enough. I was too late. I was with him for only a second before all these people starting coming, crowding round him, shouting at each other to 'get the kid out of the way so they could see the boy'. They didn't know. They didn't know_ anything_. Tony wouldn't have wanted them. He hates crowds.

All the people with their phones circled round him. They were getting help. Getting doctors, police; whoever. They were helping, but I was useless. I couldn't do anything, couldn't even move. I remember standing there, frozen to the spot, just staring at his lifeless body. For a while, I was sort of hysterical. I couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stop screaming. The world just stopped. The silence exploded and the words came all at once; nothing was real; but everything was real. Then I just froze.

I tried to get into the ambulance with him, but I couldn't. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even say my name, so they couldn't let me in. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe. He just wouldn't leave my head. I remembered him playing with me when we were little. All the other kids laughed at him in the playground for playing with his sister, but he didn't care. He knew I was lonely, and wouldn't leave me. That was just him. That was just Tony. I remembered him helping me sneak out. I remembered him looking after me. I remembered it all, and couldn't stand to think that what was happening was real. That he could be..gone. I wished it was me. It shouldn't have been him. It _couldn't_ have been him.

I must have been standing there for ages, still staring at the same spot, long after he'd been taken away. I remember people talking to me, but I never heard them- any of them. I just stood there, motionless. It must have been an hour, at least. I don't remember too much more, except that Sid came and took me to the hospital. I didn't speak to him. I didn't even acknowledge him; I just followed.

The hospital was horrible. All those machines, all those solemn faces and squeaky shoes and muttered 'sorry's'. I screamed again when I saw him. I didn't care who heard me. I didn't care who I was disturbing. Nothing mattered, thinking that he might not be alive. His face was an unnatural colour. Multicoloured bruises were already showing up on his skin. Apart from that, he looked exactly the same, and that's what scared me the most. For once in my life, I was actually scared.

They wouldn't allow me to be with him, so I stood outside the door, staring through the slits in the blinds. People kept coming over to me, patting my shoulder, speaking to me like a five year old, asking me to sit down. I wouldn't move. I wouldn't leave him. The hours passed by, and I still hadn't moved. All I could do was watch. Tony, my Tony. All I could do was watch him slip away.


End file.
